The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

To survive, neighborhoods need to be commercially viable. A group called the Food Trust believes grocery stores are a good starting point for creating that economic climate.

May 20 - The Atlantic

This report from <em>The Globe and Mail</em> looks at a recent study of three of Canada's big cities -- Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto -- and compares their densities and development patterns.

May 20 - The Globe and Mail

FEATURE

People need to stop thinking about cities as bundles of technical problems that the planners must solve for them and to start thinking about the different ways that they would live in different types of cities, says Charles Siegel.

May 20 - Charles Siegel

Gary Toth and Hannah Twaddell untangle the complexity of planning for rural communities.

May 19 - Blueprint America

Brad Templeton dreams about a world of mini robot cars and the infrastructure savings that would result.

May 19 - Brad Ideas

China has plans not only to expand its own network of high speed trains, but to build the trains for the rest of the world. They are already giving Japan and Europe a run for their money. Not bad considering their first HSR line opened in 2008.

May 19 - The Washington Post

Nearly five years and $200 million in, contruction has barely begun on the Great Park of Orange County, planned to be as ambitious as New York's Central Park.

May 19 - The Orange County Register

For decades, Indian political leaders turned their attention towards the rural population. Today, a new focus on urbanization is attracting Japanese partners to develop "eco-towns" along a rail line.

May 19 - Forbes.com

Blair Kamin, architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, says that historic preservationists need to rethink their "preservation at all costs" strategies in light of global warming.

May 19 - Preservation Magazine

Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur of Jerusalem is proposing that the city must 'emerge from its [many] walls', and connect and enhance its vibrant public spaces.

May 19 - myurbanist

Howard Ahmanson poses the idea that Los Angeles might be the least gentrified city in the U.S., with a history of white flight south and immigrants improving their own neighborhoods and holding on to them.

May 19 - New Geography

A Fresno, CA architect has designed and built a number of tiny buildings made out of recycled materials as homes for the homeless, but has yet to find a site that will take them.

May 19 - The Fresno Bee

A recent proposal by Britain's Conservative Party to create a system of conservation credits to protect biodiversity should be expanded to a global scale, according to this piece from <em>The Guardian</em>.

May 19 - The Guardian

A gubernatorial candidate in California wants to take one of the Channel Islands (a national park) and make it a place to dump pedophiles, with their own separate society.

May 18 - Curbed

Kenneth Small of UC Irvine shows that higher prices do reduce driving, as do recessions when workers lose their jobs, which is one of the main factors in the recent drop in VMT.

May 18 - The New York Times - Business Day

A historic Navy yard in Brooklyn has been crumbling for decades. Now a deal has been struck to redevelop part of the area. But even with preservation efforts, many of the area's historic homes may be too damaged to save.

May 18 - The New York Times

Yonah Freemark argues that encouraging developers to build their own transit (as Christopher Leinberger recently argued) could be highly problematic.

May 18 - Next American City

The new "Sex and the City" movie was set -- but not shot -- in Abu Dhabi. Now officials there are trying to decide whether or not to release the film to local audiences, as the city tries to control its brand and image.

May 18 - Associated Press

Ryan Bradley takes a walk across Los Angeles to reflect on the city's transportation history.

May 18 - GOOD Magazine

The site of an ex-steel factory, the 369-acre South Works site is being rebuilt as an urban nieghborhood.

May 18 - The Architect's Newspaper